So I teach a wide variety of courses. Right now, that includes the first half of the U.S. history survey, Civil War and Reconstruction, Gilded Age and Progressive Era, Environmental History, and U.S. West. We have senior people who teach Labor History, but somewhere down the road I’ll be able to pick that up. If you look at my syllabi without any context as to what those classes hold, those classes probably look pretty white, pretty male, pretty middle and upper class. All of those groups are covered plenty, I assure you. On the other hand, you can only teach the Civil War without talking about slavery if you subscribe to the Louisiana Confederate Museum version of history. You could theoretically teach the Gilded Age as the Awesome Age and talk only about how wonderful Jay Gould and Henry Clay Frick were but that would not only be stupid but an incredibly boring class for me and the students. But the idea that we don’t talk about rich white dudes is crazy. Now, we don’t talk about them as heroes. And of course that’s the point for these conservatives, that we should be–John D. Rockefeller was a great man! William McKinley was totally justified in invading the Philippines. As for women, well get back in the kitchen.

My goal in teaching history is to give students a wide range of perspectives. That includes race, class, and gender. It includes nature and sexuality. It includes politics and foreign policy. It doesn’t include too much in the way of military tactics because that bores me, although obviously I have to do a certain amount of it in the Civil War course. It probably should include more on religion, but we all have our weaknesses. It includes talking about the rich and poor, white and black and Native American and Latino and Asian. It is about men and women, homosexuals and heterosexuals, adults and children, right-wingers and left-wingers. It’s about helping students acquire the tools to make the connections they want to make between the past and the issues they care about in their own lives. It’s about teaching students to read old documents and why that matters. It’s about exposing them to the world of silent film. It’s about teaching writing and critical thinking.

In other words, it’s just standard work in the humanities.

But of course conservatives are outraged by this. The conservative goal in teaching history is to replicate the Republican Party platform in a new generation. Conservatives see history professors as the enemy and they have declared war upon us. The only option we have is to push back, not in favor of a certain leftist ideology, because many historians aren’t leftists by any definition. But rather to push back for a multiplicity of perspectives, for presenting students with information that can help them make connections between the past and the present, whether they become more informed conservatives or outraged feminist activists or they just learn a little more about the history of the television they love so well.

And as for why we should create courses to worship Alexander Graham Bell at the college level, well you’ll have to answer that one for me.

Comments (492)

Considering I don’t have anything really substantial to say about this, other than to say they just want to make history as boring and forgettable as possible, one of the things I loved about Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee was the way every chapter started by placing it’s subject matter in the context of European and U.S. history with the quick summaries.

You could theoretically teach the Gilded Age as the Awesome Age and talk only about how wonderful Jay Gould and Henry Clay Frick were but that would not only be stupid but an incredibly boring class for me and the students.

Wait, you don’t refer to Gould and Frick as Glorious Job Creators?

Why do you demonize success, Erik?

John D. Rockefeller was a great man!

He did get one thing right. Best biking on the East Coast, with the arguable exception of the Cabot Trail in Canada. If you ever came down off those trails, with the sun on your back and the wind in your face, on a glorious Maine summer day, you might find just a wee spot of forgiveness for him.

Rockefeller(Sr.) spent the last 40 years of his life in retirement. His fortune was mainly used to create the modern systematic approach of targeted philanthropy. He was able to do this through the creation of foundations that had a major effect on medicine, education, and scientific research.[7]

And since the survey courses tend to be much larger, more total specialized courses (in any subject) doesn’t actually mean that most students are taking specialized courses instead of intro/survey whatever.

No, they’ll be fine with course like The Boers: A History of a Heroic People or Glorious Defenders of Southern Honor:A History of the Ku Klux During Reconstruction or White Men Taming the Wild West. These are courses that rich white men could support with pride.

According to Ghanaian market women race theory if they are not African (that is actually from Africa) or Chinese then they are white (obruni). That includes everybody from the western hemisphere regardless of skin color, people from the Middle East, and people from South Asia.

Among the Indians of the Southeastern US during the early Colonial Period, African slaves were classed together with Europeans (by the late 18th century they had adopted a classification similar to that of the Europeans). Among the Cheyenne, blacks are “black white men.”

[Fonte] determined that too many courses were highly specialized, and also noted that major historical figures were being overlooked at both universities, with only rare mentions of “Ralph Waldo Emerson, John Dewey, Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas A. Edison, the Wright brothers or the scientists of the Manhattan Project.”

I would say that there is an overabundance of social historians within history departments of the United States (and thus courses that use social history as a means of exploring the past), but the answer to that dilemma is not to re-embrace the Great Man Theory. Having more courses on military or religious history is one thing. Reforming the discipline as an exercise in biography is is quite another.

It doesn’t include too much in the way of military tactics because that bores me, although obviously I have to do a certain amount of it in the Civil War course.

The problem with military history is that it is too dominated by hobbyists who are near exclusively focused on the trivial details of warfare (tactics, equipment, orders of battle, etc.) so a lot of people assume that this is all there is to the field and ignore it. Because you’re right, that stuff is boring.

But try talking about the rise of the modern state without talking about the proletarianization of military force. You simply can’t. This was a phenomena that buried feudal systems in the dust because it made hardened aristocracies superfluous, occurred virtually everywhere on the planet and within a strikingly narrow window of time, and was what largely drove and reinforced industrial capitalism. The hows and whys of this type of phenomena are what military history should be.

I don’t think anybody is talking about the New Military History. But somehow, call it a hunch, I think if you have an excerpt of The Rise of American Airpower in your survey, it’s not getting counted. And the complaint is everybody in a college survey should read the Gettysburg Address? Really? Really? Because, why?

I don’t think anybody is talking about the New Military History. But somehow, call it a hunch, I think if you have an excerpt of The Rise of American Airpower in your survey, it’s not getting counted

That’s pretty much my point. You can’t discount military history, but you can discount what passes as military history in the minds of certain conservatives.

And the complaint is everybody in a college survey should read the Gettysburg Address? Really? Really? Because, why?

I guess being that the Gettysburg address was only about 200 words and is sometimes regarded as the greatest speech in American history, the lesson one should learn from it is “when making a public address: keep it short.” Other than that, not much.

It is worth keeping in mind that Lincoln’s first great appearance on the national stage is the Lincoln-Douglas Debates – at each of which the first speaker spoke for a full hour, followed by the second speaker for ninety minutes, followed by the first speaker returning for thirty minutes. The Gettysburg Address is short and is a masterpiece, but it’s absurd to learn from Lincoln that public speakers should keep it short.

The problem with military history is that it is too dominated by hobbyists who are near exclusively focused on the trivial details of warfare (tactics, equipment, orders of battle, etc.) so a lot of people assume that this is all there is to the field and ignore it. Because you’re right, that stuff is boring.

Says you.

That stuff is incredibly interesting, especially if you combine it with the social sciences.

Logistics especially is fascinating if you compare ‘things learned during wars’ to ‘how those things were then applied to the civilian sector after the war.’

The problem with military history is that it is too dominated by hobbyists who are near exclusively focused on the trivial details of warfare (tactics, equipment, orders of battle, etc.) so a lot of people assume that this is all there is to the field and ignore it. Because you’re right, that stuff is boring.

Says you. Paddy Griffith’s study of Civil War tactics is fascinating precisely because he addresses how the interaction of poorly applied tactics (“boring”) and new weapons technology (“boring”) affected casualty rates and resulted in the strategic indecisiveness of many Civil War battles. The minutiae of military history may not interest you or Loomis, but the folk beliefs of northern Italian peasants in the 16th and 17th centuries do not particularly interest me and yet I can understand why someone might think it worth writing a book about them.

My experience has been that the minutiae of anything is usually pretty damn interesting.

The minutiae of piano tuning is interesting because of how octaves work. The minutiae of fire hydrants is interesting because of the way public water infrastructure as it relates to firefighting is designed.

That was, in fact, what I was thinking about. My wife read it and found it fascinating, but I just couldn’t get into it the one time I tried — it’s on my to read list in the “you really should try again” section, but…

The Texas Association of Scholars is criticizing A&M’s history department over their undergraduate course offerings. Post-graduate scholarship of the kind that leads to books is another matter.

In that context, I would no more expect undergrads to take a course that extensively covered the folk beliefs of 16th and 17th century northern Italian peasants than I would expect undergrads to take a course that extensively covered the development of the trace italienne. I doubt there are many undergraduate courses at American universities that cover the folk beliefs of 16th and 17th century northern Italian peasants, but if there are, I’d wager that they use that topic as nothing more than a historiographical case study.

Minutia in the service of a broader historical narrative is all well and good, but I seriously doubt that that’s the kind of thing that A&M’s conservative critics have in mind by recommending more courses in, among other things, military history. They want a decontextualized study of minutia, because that’s one of the more effective ways of not talking about bad stuff that white people did.

When I was in college not too long ago at a Big 10 University, my military history professor often complained that there were only 2 people that taught it throughout the Big 10. It was an interesting, very popular and well-attended class, and he often said things that made right-wingers mad.

The larger universities should all have at least one military history professor, even just for the fact that guys like Victor Davis Hanson don’t dominate the field.

He was probably right about the inefficacy of crop-ravaging. No one would have minded if he’d stuck to scholarship; but his transformation into the world’s most passive-aggressive political hack, combined with his constant reminders to anyone who’ll listen that he’s a classicist–that I cannot abide.

Same thing here. My professor complained about the same thing. I loved that class too. Ironically percisely because it was entirely about the societal/economic effects of wars and military institutions. I picked up the class thinking it was all about battles and left with far more knowledge about how militaries shape and are shaped by their cultures than I ever thought existed.

Well, my U.S. History II class probably did as much as anything else to turn me into a bona-fide liberal, so at least give them credit for being right that getting a more accurate view of American history than you do in high school (and this is Texas!) makes it unlikely that you’ll support the conservatarian view of the world.

I had an AP history teacher whose guts I hated in Highschool because he was such a hardass. He made sure we all got 5’s on those tests, but I never did so much work for another class again in my life (my entire college career was a joke compared to this class).

If I ever meet him again I’m going to have to shake his hand though. I would never have been liberal without him. At the time I just wanted to learn about battles and wars, and I didn’t understand why all we ever talked about was organized labor and civil rights.

You do realize that most folks in New Hampshire, having been exposed to scads of presidential candidates, a hands-on legislature, and for-real town meetings are possessed of excellent political bullshit detectors, right?

I am teaching a graduate course on ethnicity and race next semester. I used to teach an undergraduate version of it in Kyrgyzstan. There are some syllabi of the undergrad version up on my blog. But, I will not be covering race and ethnicity in the US. Instead I will be covering the USSR, South Africa, and Palestine. I still have to put the graduate syllabus together, but my current thinking on the subject is pretty heavily influenced by George Fredrickson, Jon Rex, Kennan Malik, and Etienne Balibar.

I got my BA in History at the University of Texas. We read Emerson in a couple of classes. And I took a wonderful history of science class that did in fact focus on the physics and politics of the atomic bomb.

Of course, none of my classes spread the triumphalist narrative that the wingnuts apparently want….

It was a really good class. When all this nutism blew up yesterday, I thought of my professor, and sent him an email telling him what I thought of his work twenty or so years ago. I hope I teach as well as he did….

Worth remembering that conservative favorite and phony historian David Barton once served as Vice Chair of the Texas Republican Party. The rewriting of history is an old goal of movement conservatism. Those you control the past control the future, doncha know!

The gun-nuts and Bible-readers of the Midland, commonly called the rednecks, do NOT trust the government not to turn on them as the old USSR turned against to the bourgeoisie.

Let’s face it, the rednecks are increasingly portrayed by the mainstream-media as white racist tea-party terrorists, as the bitter clingers (clinging to their guns and to their Bible). They are the new “class enemies,” the duly appointed scapegoats.

The rednecks fear they are being perceived as a counter-revolutionnary force (against the socialist revolution of the hope & change brigades) — a force not only standing in the way of social progress and liberal utopia, but actively blocking it. This makes them pure Evil, since liberals plan for utopia is pure Good. That could mean that a very liberal Administration (this one, or another one) could come, eventually, to feel totally justified in seeking a “final solution to the bitter clinger question.”

Let me give you an example, sir. Then I’ll explain something that seems to escape you.

The FBI says that 1 million violent felonies are stopped or prevented with a firearm, and 98% of the time the gun is not discharged. And not one of these events makes the national news!

A girl was going to be raped. She pulled her gun. The thug backs off. She did not have to pull the trigger. The rape never happened. Those evens are virtually never registred: by definition, something that has been prevented does not happen.

It’s the same with an armed citizenry: we can’t know what exactly has been prevented since it did not happen.

Yea, the US Army is quaking in its collective boots at your martial prowess.

One of my good friends is a southern, conservative dude and when he was stationed in Oklahoma he used to joke that he almost wished Texas would try to secede, just so he could be part of putting them in their place.

Ain’t about ‘paranoia,’ Sharculese. It’s about prevention, about the lessons of history. Go ask Turkish Armenians, German Jews, Russian Kulaks, Chinese, Ugandans, Guatemalens, Cambodians, Cubans, Rwandans, and on and on, what us evil Crackers mean.

Ain’t about appropriating! but about witnessing, keeping the memory alive. And it ain’t only about the Jewish people; the biopolitical project of the Third Reich was about producing a master race from the German volk; they were killing Slaves as well, gypsies, homosexuals, sickos, and so on and so forth.

No sharculese. It’s the other way around. Preventive wars are like Gulf War II are about ACTING ON THE FUTURE NOW. Evil crackers just want to preserve NOW thestatu quo in order to prevent any genocide from occuring in the future.

Ain’t about appropriating! but about witnessing, keeping the memory alive.

We can keep the memory alive without being lectured to by crackers about how not getting to have all the toys you want is exactly the same as genocide. That shit is basically the textbook definition of appropriating.

“Well, can you point to a western democracy with a disarmed citizenry where awful things happened precisely because those citizens were disarmed that could have been prevented if they’d been armed?”

Yes, the Weimar Republic, with their gun registration laws and limits on weapons. Then Hitler was elected and offered considerable power in 1933. His regime used the registration list to disarm first, and then later to send many in camps– eventually killing millions.

Hitler used the gun registration lists compiled under the non-threatening Weimar Republic, in order to locate the regime’s “enemies.” First, they picked up the weapons. Later, they proceeded to mass arrests; it was easy since the people are disarmed.

When they gave up their arms, they placed their entire trust in the permanent FUTURE benevolence of the German government. Fatal mistake.

Hmm. ‘Murke.’ I kind of like that. It looks a bit classier than ‘Murc.’

That said, you’re quoting… another random guy quoting a statistic. You’re invoking the authority of the FBI here, saying that they say a million violent felonies are prevented a year by gun owners. So, okay. Where are they saying it?

Hitler used the gun registration lists compiled under the non-threatening Weimar Republic, in order to locate the regime’s “enemies.” First, they picked up the weapons. Later, they proceeded to mass arrests; it was easy since the people are disarmed

We should probably not cede power to a charismatic nationalist with a message of transformative restoration, then, but you guys always seem to want to do that, so…

Yes, the Weimar Republic, with their gun registration laws and limits on weapons.

So, you’re asserting that if the tiny Jewish minority in Germany had been armed with personal weapons, the pogrom against them, which had the enthusiastic support of much of the populace and was being orchestrated by a guy who had command of a modern army, it would have made a difference?

Well, maybe.

An armed insurgency, guerrilla war, can be effective against tyrants or invaders. But it usually depends upon there being widespread discontent; insurgents need a sympathetic populace to move around in, or they’re just a criminal gang and rather easily dealt with.

That notwithstanding, you are basically contending that we should always act like the possibility the government is going to round us up and put us in camps, all the time, forever, and that any price living in a heavily armed society might exact on us is worth paying because this eventuality is so terrifying.

That’s no way to live. Part of living in a civilization is so you don’t HAVE to be scared and paranoid and armed all the time. I participate in a collective government and pay my taxes for precisely this reason.

That notwithstanding, you are basically contending that we should always act like the possibility the government is going to round us up and put us in camps, all the time, forever, and that any price living in a heavily armed society might exact on us is worth paying because this eventuality is so terrifying.

1) Well, as probably know, it was not about a ‘tiny minority’ of Jews. It was about all the diverse people (a multiplicity) left besides the Volk. And even the volk would have been sacrificed later on upon the altar of the master race.

I suggest you read Agamben on ‘sovereign power and bare life’ to learn more about the biopolitical fracture.

2) It ain’t about living in fear neither. Only about being armed. It acts as a deterrent. A very powerful deterrent.

A free people is an armed people. It’s a predicate of individual sovereignty. Sovereign individuals form a free people.

No sharculese. It’s the other way around. Preventive wars are like Gulf War II are about ACTING ON THE FUTURE NOW. Evil crackers just want to preserve NOW thestatu quo in order to prevent any genocide from occuring in the future.

We get it dude, you want to use whatever the fuck you can dream up as an excuse to act out your ad hoc fantasies of cartoon machismo.

There is actually something called the Constitution, with the Bill of Rights.

That’s not a winning argument here at LGM, Dagney. None of these people really care about any of that.
It’s only important to them if they can use it to promote a particular agenda. But in the abstract…not so much.

Let’s face it, the rednecks are increasingly portrayed by the mainstream-media as white racist tea-party terrorists, as the bitter clingers (clinging to their guns and to their Bible). They are the new “class enemies,” the duly appointed scapegoats.

Thank you for those two links. I knew about the second one; I’ve trained with James Yeager, for whom I have great respect.

James Yeager is totally sane. I deeply respect what he has done. At some point, someone has to step up, man up, and SAY IT. No masks, no anonymity, no B.S. “This is my name,” and “this is the situation,” and “anyone who doesn’t like it can come and try to do something about it”. James Yeager knows EXACTLY what he has done. He is NOT crazy; he is just the FIRST to say it publicly, openly: Stick to your guns, no matter what.

If the government come to take them by force, they have declared war on the Constitution, and on you. At that point, war is joined, just as it was on another big gun confiscation raid on April 19, 1775. If those guns were legal in 2012, it should be legal in 2013 and it will be forever. If they say otherwise, they are liars and traitors and oath breakers and domestic enemies. That’s what Yeager basically said.

Every survivor of every genocide says the same: when they come to take your guns, shoot them. Make them work for it, so that THEIR system would become overwhelmed — because they don’t have 20 million Federal Law Enforcement Agents to do armed battles all over the country, instead of nice polite arrest raids.

Remember Solzhenitzn’s paragraph “And how we burned in the camps later” because they didn’t resist the “KGB” in the lobbies and stairwells with axes and knives.

If you give up your arms, you are placing your entire trust in the permanent future benevolence of the U.S. govt. This trust is invariably fatal, as history teaches us, from Turkey to Russia, from Germany to China, from Cambodia to Cuba.

If the government come to take them by force, they have declared war on the Constitution, and on you.

You’d have to prove this.

If those guns were legal in 2012, it should be legal in 2013 and it will be forever. If they say otherwise, they are liars and traitors and oath breakers and domestic enemies.

So, they have to be liars? They can’t just be wrong? And traitors? Treason has a very specific definition and wanting to confiscate weapons doesn’t come anywhere near it, even if it were unconstitutional.

Every survivor of every genocide says the same: when they come to take your guns, shoot them.

This is empirically false.

If you give up your arms, you are placing your entire trust in the permanent future benevolence of the U.S. govt. This trust is invariably fatal

The British seem to be doing okay. So do the Canadians, the French, the Japanese…

The repeated comparison of genocide to resort to the political process involving open debate and an acknowledgment of the limitations on what can be done shows a contempt for history that is just breathtaking.

The repeat discussion, absent from your delusional persecution fantasy, of the fact that smelting all the swords into plowshares, or pretty much any of the swords for that matter, is not happening.

Seriously, it’s like your not paying attention to the conversation at all and just want any excuse to talk big about how you would totally stand up to the ‘gun grabbers’ (the stupidest term in our political discourse)

– “If the government come to take them by force, they have declared war on the Constitution, and on you.”

— “You’d have to prove this.”

–The Founding Fathers were suspicious of standing armies (foreign and domestic), and intended the able-bodied folks to provide for their own defense.

While undesirable, a standing army is necessary to protect the country; but that does not neutralize or abolish the importance of an armed populace, able to overthrow a tyranny by owning the same basic weapon of any contemporary standding army: now that weapons is a select-fire, intermediate cartridge, detachable magazine carabines.
To make clear that the existence of an actual standing army does NOT abolish the rights of an armed population, the Founders wrote the Second Amendment like this: “while a nation needs a standing army to remain secure, nonetheless citizens retain the right to own weapons of all kinds.”

You understand the difference between stating something and proving it right. I mean, seriously, you’ve demonstrated that your grasp of history is basically fucked, but you get the basics of how it works, right?

Sorry for not stating the obvious: neutralizing the effectivity of the Bill of Rights without any justification (such as WAR) is akin to a putsh, to declaring war onto the populace. The President and every law enforcement officer have pledged to protect the Constitution.

Going against their pledge is aking to acting as domestic enemies.

Don’t get me wrongl I’m aware the emergencies require the temporary deactivation of the elements of the Constitution, even the Habeas Corpus. But a justification should be provided.

I was of course, referring to your sweeping declaration about “the Founding Fathers,” the sort of claim that always foreshadows a claim not researched or even fully thought out, but let’s pretend I didn’t. Let’s pretend I was talking about the other gibberish you said.

Do you really not get that all anyone is talking about is doing things through the political process? Is that totally lost on you? I know it’s more fun to make alarmist claims about revolution, but sooner or later you’re gonna have to admit that reality is a lot more boring than your diary, kiddo.

able to overthrow a tyranny by owning the same basic weapon of any contemporary standding (sic)army: now that weapons (sic) is (sic) a select-fire, intermediate cartridge, detachable magazine carabines (sic).

Do you have a well-edited news-letter to which me might subscribe?

And you do understand that the “basic weapon” of the Army is a tank, right?

To be overly fair to Dagney, a few million people with automatic weapons who decided to conduct an armed insurgency (as opposed to trying to shoot it out with a tank in the middle of the street) would in fact be a very serious threat.

But they’d also need a sympathetic populace to support them, and by the time we got to that point our system of governance is already breaking down pretty badly.

The Founding Fathers were suspicious of standing armies (foreign and domestic), and intended the able-bodied folks to provide for their own defense.

Some of the Founders were. Others were not. A bunch of them had no real problem with standing armies at all.

Never conflate what made it into the constitution, or what some of the more well-known founders wrote, with what ‘The Founders’ as a group monolithically believed. They started arguing over what the Constitution meant as soon as the ink was dry. A number of the drafter admit freely they fudged clauses in order so that they could tell different stories about them in different states.

“while a nation needs a standing army to remain secure, nonetheless citizens retain the right to own weapons of all kinds.”

The Second Amendment says nothing of the kind. It doesn’t refer to, or deal with, the army in any way, shape, or form.

And a number of the Founders would disagree with you that it guaranteed citizens a right to own weapons ‘of all kinds’.

The whole amendment is worded badly. It almost certainly does guarantee a certain limited right to own guns as individuals. But that’s about as far as it goes, and like the first amendment, reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions may be put onto that right.

What’s that, you say? You disagree with all of us here over what time, place, and manner restrictions on your 2nd Amendment rights you find reasonable? Why, we have a whole legislative branch and a court system that is ultimately staffed by all voting citizens!

Win your battle there. Based on the last twenty or thirty years, people arguing for a robust interpretation of the 2nd Amendment have been very successful.

“we have a whole legislative branch and a court system that is ultimately staffed by all voting citizens!”

Many of us evil Crackers have no choice but to admit that the Republic is dead, that there is no effective Rule of Law anymore. Cf. MF Global for instance, and the $1.6 billion theft. Cf. Fast and Furious. Cf. Benghazi.

Also: The Republic, mind you, ain’t a democracy ; it was a representative democracy. And guess what?, this system of governance can not work anymore. How come?

Well, 21 of 22 incumbent senators were reelected in November, 353 of 373 incumbent Congress(wo)men. The people have reelected 94% percent of the running incumbents even though the legislative branch had an approval rating of 9%.

This indicates that we are a nation of idiots, too stupid and too degenerated to self-govern, to elect proper representatives.

In this context — a stupid populace and a dead Rule of Law — it seems unwise to depend on the judiciary and the legislative to neutralize, to counter-check any abusive executive power.

Well, 21 of 22 incumbent senators were reelected in November, 353 of 373 incumbent Congress(wo)men. The people have reelected 94% percent of the running incumbents even though the legislative branch had an approval rating of 9%.

This means nothing of the sort. Until it’s possible to vote in other peoples’ districts, the overall approval rating of Congress shouldn’t matter in any given individual’s vote.

“If those guns were legal in 2012, it should be legal in 2013 and it will be forever. If they say otherwise, they are liars and traitors and oath breakers and domestic enemies.

So, they have to be liars? They can’t just be wrong? And traitors? Treason has a very specific definition and wanting to confiscate weapons doesn’t come anywhere near it, even if it were unconstitutional.”

— Oh yes, traitors: as in “going against their pledge of allegiance to the Constitution”. That is treason.

Point to the provision in the Constitution where it only means exactly what you declare it to mean.

I mean, I always thought it was emphatically the province and duty of the Judicial Department to say what the law is, but maybe I’m wrong, maybe the Constitution is a blunt object you awkwardly try to use as a bludgeon against anyone who disagrees with you.

It would require the drafters to have been much dumber men than I imagine them to have been, but I’m open to that possibility. Sell me on your case.

Yes it is, but y’all keep deleting the first half about the “well regulated militia.” Nothing there at all about inbred yahoos getting to have as many weapons of whatever type they want. Even the reactionary fuckwits on the Roberts Court have agreed we can regulate and restrict firearms.

“I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people, except for a few public officials.”
— George Mason, in Debates in Virginia Convention on Ratification of the Constitution, Elliot, Vol. 3, June 16, 1788

@DrDick

Self-Regulation is a cybernetic phenomenon; it is largely endogenous. That’s why I neglected to include it my answer; it belongs to auto-organization, more so than to a top-down imposition of rules and regulations.

Yeah, but violating that oath isn’t an act of treason, necessarily. Again, treason has a real specific definition.

For that matter, I’m not even sure it’s legally actionable. In the case of a President and many Governors, their legislative counterparts can impeach them if they feel they’ve violated said oath. But legislators… that’s tricky.

I guess their fellows could expel them from their governing body, but I don’t know you could bring legal action against them.

When the application of justice ain’t legally actionnable come the guns.

That’s no way to live. I know I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating.

You need a powerful moral justification for violence, because it’s so awful. There’s never been a society in the world in which perfect justice has been provided, and advocating individual citizens take justice into their own hands using dangerous weapons as a commonplace matter is just crazy. You’d be forever living in fear that someone who thought you’d wronged them would come after you.

More to the point, this seems slightly hypocritical. You keep invoking the Founders as an authority, but then turn around and indict principles that don’t just derive from them, but were baked in by them. They felt it necessary to narrowly define treason and many of them wrote words going into further detail on that clause.

You could argue they got it wrong, of course. They got a lot of stuff wrong.

If you give up your arms, you are placing your entire trust in the permanent future benevolence of the U.S. govt. This trust is invariably fatal, as history teaches us, from Turkey to Russia, from Germany to China, from Cambodia to Cuba.

*Checks the alphabet. OK, C-G is screwed, then R-T.*

Ok, Norway. That’s NOT between those letters. They have pretty stringent gun control laws. No totalitarianism!

Let’s look at the Netherlands. Yep, no totalitarianism!

What about Australia? Yep, again, no totalitarianism!

You know what? We should be just fine! The United States is outside of the “Alphabet Line O’ Totalitarianism!” We should EASILY be able to get rid of our guns and not turn into Cambobia, China, Germany, Turkey*, or Russia?

*Whats up with Turkey, by the way? I get they’re an Islamic nation and all, but they’re totally a democracy with relatively free markets and stuff, especially compared to their neighbors. And they certainly aren’t “less free” now then they were in the past. But let’s spot you that one.

I think he is using the term to refer to the Ottoman Empire and the genocide committed by the Committee of Union and Progress against the Armenians during World War One. Of course Turkey and the Ottoman Empire are not exactly same. The idea of a distinct Turkish nation as it later became constituted developed rather late in the life of the Ottoman Empire. But, one sees these type of errors all the time. For instance people referring to the USSR as Russia. At any rate the CUP government was not typical of most of Ottoman history especially as they basically bypassed the Sultan who was the legal head of state.

It happened on the territory of Russia, by the people of Russia. Russia as the motherland, as in Dostoïevski’s for instance.

A nation can’t be reduced to the modern idea of “imagined community” as described by Anderson, OK. Let’s say I’m using Deleuze’s definition of nation here: a nation = a people + a land — no matter the form of the political power, be it a Kaliphate or a nation-state or a empire.

“Of course Turkey and the Ottoman Empire are not exactly same. The idea of a distinct Turkish nation as it later became constituted developed rather late in the life of the Ottoman Empire. But, one sees these type of errors all the time.”

I was not referring to Turkey or Russia in the sense of a nation-state. The people of Turkey and the land of Turkey existed way before Ataturk. I was using the concept of nation as defined by a unity effecting from land+people.

The people of Turkey did it, no matter who gave the order, no matter the structure of the (fast-declining) Kaliphate.

Neither the Ottoman Empire or the USSR were nation states. The Ottoman Empire was an Islamic state formed long before nationalism existed. The term “Turk” was considered an insult in the Ottoman Empire for most of its existence. The official Ottoman language had a lot of Arabic and Persian influence that made it completely different from modern Turkish. It even used Arabic rather than Latin script. Also the language of poetry remained Persian and religion Arabic. It is only in the 19th Century that a Turkish nationalist movement arises.

The CUP did advocate Turkish nationalism. But, that hardly makes the Ottoman Empire a Turkish nation-state. That goal was still a ways off. The “people of Turkey” is an odd phrase. First there is no such administrative territory at the time. There is Anatolia and Thrace which later become the Turkish Republic. But, a lot of people in Anatolia are not Turkish at this time or even today. In fact a great deal of the massacres of Armenians were carried out by people that were distinctly not Turkish by ethnicity. Most notably the Kurds, but there were also Circassians. Neither of which speak languages even remotely related to Turkish.

What happened in Russia? Most of the Armenian genocide took place in the Ottoman Empire. The Armenian population of eastern Anatolia now in Turkey was deported to what is today Syria and Iraq. About half of them died as a result.

As far as dekulakization, some of it happened in the RSFSR (Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic), although that included a lot of non- Russian territories like the Kalmyk ASSR, Chechen-Ingush ASSR, and the Crimean ASSR. Some of these territories like the Kazakh SSR and Kyrgyz SSR become full scale republics in 1936 and later independent states. I guarantee you nobody thinks that Kyrgyzstan is part of Russia and they haven’t since 1924 or so when the Soviet government delimited the borders of Central Asia.

But, the greatest suffering from collectivization was the later famine or Holodomor which certainly did not for the most part take place in Russia, but rather Ukraine. It is true that Ukraine was once part of the Russian Empire. But, in 1932-1933 it is impossible to argue that Ukraine was part of Rossiia. It certainly was not Russkie. If you want to test out your theory you should go to Lviv or even Kiev and start telling Ukrainians that they are really part of Russia. Let me know if they leave you with any teeth.

But aren’t there other examples: The Philipines 1900-1908, American Indians 1492-1920. These actually give an indication of the level of barbarity that the government in question is capable of. But, sadly, may no longer have the gumption to commit.

I would note that although the Philipines was not a nice place, the result was not eradication.
Maybe the lesson is that the Filipinos were armed.

Didn’t we disarm the Japanese after WWII? I have a hard time imagining Doug MacArthur doing anything less.

The Apaches held out against the armed forces of the US and Mexico for decades. That is pretty good. The only comparable 19th century indigenous resistance where such a small group held such a larger adjacent power at bay for so long was Shamil in the Caucasus. Given the resource imbalance it is hard to imagine any circumstances in which the Apaches could have done better militarily against the US than they actually did.

Let’s face it, the rednecks are increasingly portrayed by the mainstream-media as white racist tea-party terrorists, as the bitter clingers (clinging to their guns and to their Bible). They are the new “class enemies,” the duly appointed scapegoats.

You know, like Honey Boo-boo, or Duck Empire, or them people wut hunt them gators.

Enemies. Terrorists. Real bad guys.

Yeah, it’s gotten to the point that even Muslims and black public housing residents are feeling sorry for them.

They take 20% of my gross out of my pay check every month. There is also a VAT of 15%. But, you don’t have to file any income taxes if you get a salary. All the income tax is taken monthly out of your paycheck. I don’t know about property taxes.

I almost feel bad for the “rednecks” who are going to try to try to be a “counter-revolutionnary force.” That didn’t turn out so well for the Confederacy, and those guys were a hella lot better prepared then these knuckleheads.

It’s almost like they don’t realize that virtually all of their actual power and privilege comes from the ballot, and all of their guns don’t mean squat. Do they even REMEMBER what happened to the Black Panthers when they tried to be “counter-reveolutionnaries”?

By “casting themselves”, I mean: by imagining themselves; that’s how communities are formed and endure. Any community is an imagined community as well as an actual one; there are at least two major folds: a virtual one and an actual one.

Both those poles are real and materiall one is abstract, and the other is concrete.

If you don’t understand the role and function of imagination in the information and deformation of communities, then you don’t sh*t about politics. Sir.

This blog is pretty tolerant of people whose politics we consider crazy when it comes to, say, the economy, or climate change, or in this case gun control. I mean, we’ll say nasty things, but we haven’t banned a ton of people for it.

I’ve got from Brian Massumi a digital version of the chapter on War Machine from ‘Mille Plateaux,’ and let me tell ya, the evil Crackers of the Midland LOVE it. They understand militias from the perspective of a nomadic war machine against the state apparatus.

They dig also Deleuze’s text on the unfolding Society of Control. They understand that ‘gun control’ is more about control than about The Gun.

The real inheritor of Deleuze, Agamben and Foucault are the rednecks of the Midland, not the academics of the Coasts.

re: there’s two things I genuinely don’t understand. I’m shy to ask, but since you seem very affable and well-tempered, I will dare, here:

— why is islam being conflated with a race among lefties? criticizing a political ideology has nothing to do with racism. I genuinely don’t get it.

— why do they assume that someone criticizing sodomite marriage is phobic, as in “homophic”? It has very little to do with fear; it’s not only about affects (there are affective forces in play, here, of course, but fear ain’t remotely among the most relevant ones), it’s also about percepts and concepts. And those percepts and concepts can be debated rationnaly, I should think.

– why is islam being conflated with a race among lefties? criticizing a political ideology has nothing to do with racism. I genuinely don’t get it.

– why do they assume that someone criticizing sodomite marriage is phobic, as in “homophic”? It has very little to do with fear; it’s not only about affects (there are affective forces in play, here, of course, but fear ain’t remotely among the most relevant ones), it’s also about percepts and concepts.

It’s all about advantage and shutting down honest debate. The first they can label as ‘racism’ and the second, they can label as some kind of mental problem. Either way, they don’t have to discuss these issues.

And those percepts and concepts can be debated rationnaly, I should think.

Good Luck with that here at LGM. They do not tolerate anyone that’s not in their Borg.

I’m doing my best to be as up-front as I possibly can in the context of anonymity; I will unveil my identity eventually If the mods here don’t change my comments or play other unfair tricks. I also try to be as straightforward as possible, without hurting too much the anxious frailty of well-intentionned but often misguided lefties. I try not to be rude, since I’m genuinely interested in rigorous debate about gold, guns and the law (natural as well as positive).

I’ve seen people conflate hatred of islam with racism, of course. But that’s different from what you just said.

criticizing a political ideology has nothing to do with racism. I genuinely don’t get it.

Well, first of all, Islam isn’t a political ideology in the accepted understanding of the term. It’s a religion. It does include precepts for how to order a society in it, of course. But a lot of religions do. We don’t refer to Quakers as possessing a political ideology; we refer to them as possessing a religion.

Second of all, criticizing a religion can have a lot to do with racism, especially if you make sweeping indictments of it. Race, religion, and class have been bound together for a very long time. Racism against the Irish was bound together with hating on Catholics for a long time, for example.

why do they assume that someone criticizing sodomite marriage is phobic, as in “homophic”?

‘Sodomite’ isn’t really a term that’ll get you a lot of respect around here. It’s inaccurate and pejorative.

To answer the question: two reasons. First, people railing against homosexuals often use the language of fear; that they’ll destroy society, morality, culture, our great nation, etc. That sounds like fear talk to me.

Second of all, while the term may not be accurate, it’s a convenient catchall. I’d be the first to admit that someone who simply hates, rather than fears, homosexuals and/or their struggle for equality isn’t really homophobic. But the term is convenient for use in this manner. We use a lot of words like this; they don’t really apply to their referential if we’re being hyper-accurate, but we do it anyway for convenience.

What term would you suggest for people aren’t afraid of homosexuals, but oppose their formal and practical equality and participation in society?

“I’ve seen people conflate hatred of islam with racism, of course. But that’s different from what you just said.”

That’s what I meant. Being accused of being a racist as I criticize islam.

As per the point of islam being a religion: It’s not the place for that debate, but one could argue that islam ain’t a religion if, like Walter Benjamin, we differentiate a religion from a political system by the element of GRACE (charis), which islam lacks thereof, since it punishes apostates by death and converts mainly by the threat of the sword. But let’s no go there here; it’s way off topic. I appreciate and understand your answer however; thank you.

“What term would you suggest for people aren’t afraid of homosexuals, but oppose their formal and practical equality and participation in society?”

That’s a good question; and I have no clue. I would however oppose that we, opponents of homosexual marriage and of sodomy, oppose the homosexuals’ “formal and practical equality and participation in society.” We don’t. We don’t want them to be second-class citizens or something. As individuals, we want them to have the same individual rights as any other individual.
Speaking here from a Catholic perspective, we really, really want to immunize the institution of marriage (which precedes the institution of the disciplinarian family) from homosexuality — in order to keep within marriage the important dimension of natural fertility (the fact that particular married, heterosexual couples are naturally sterile does not abolish the general point).
And also, many Christians feel that it is their charitable duty to help individuals inclined to perform homosexual acts from enacting their burning desire; we genuinely believe doi so would be putting their eternal souls in jeopardy; and thus we might feel it is our charitable duty to HELP people with same-sex attractions carrying their cross in chastity, rather than sticking our foot in their back and pushing them down the road to perdition. Again, I apologize for going off-topic and thank you for your valuable answer.
In short: many lefties see us as haters of muslims and homosexuals, when in fact we love them, and seek to liberate them from evil; that’s all. LOL

Speaking here from a Catholic perspective, we really, really want to immunize the institution of marriage (which precedes the institution of the disciplinarian family) from homosexuality — in order to keep within marriage the important dimension of natural fertility (the fact that particular married, heterosexual couples are naturally sterile does not abolish the general point).

It ain’t a lie, sir. I suggest you read Foucault on pastoral power as exercised by the Church: the goal of the government of the Church is to guide the flock towards the salvation of each individual soul. This is the cybernetics of the Churchl; and the meta-value of economy that regulates this form of government is the blood and flesh of Christ. That value of all christian values operates in a way analogous to gold in the economy of monetary currencies.

I don’t care what Mr Foucault believed or not, nor do I care about his private sexual life in sodomite land and magical fists; his analysis on pastoral power are still accurate and relevant. I love reading his work.

One’s private life and one’s public work do not coincide.; there is often a junction, never a coincidence.

He was right about islam, wrong about the Jewish People. Like Agamben and Ratzinger (the actual Pope) have written. the Jewish People are the Chosen People, elected by God to be the representative of mankind. Their Covenant still stands; it has not been abolished. Anyone able to read St. Paul should understand the difference between abolition and deactivation. The Old Covenant between Israel (not the State, but the people) and God still stands from the Jewish perspective; the nomos of the Law, however, has been deactivated from the Gentil’s point of view, since via Christ, the non-Jews by the flesh can have access to the Promise. So the Law dividing between Jews and non-Jews has been deactivated from the non-Jews’ perspective; but the Abrahamic still stands between the Jewish People and God.

We should infer, from his persecution of the Jewish People, that Torquemada did not understand this.

“Believing this, you do not seem to have understood Foucault, nor his project. You can no more separate the works of Foucault from his sexuality than you can separate the trolling of JenBob from his.”

Like I said, there is a junction, not a coincidence. I don’t want to virtualize Foucault’s life from his actual work; but I want to be able to use his concepts and think along the problems he did formulate without having to anchor those concepts and problematics into his actual live. And that’s perfectly from a methological point of view, isn’t it?

Speaking here from a Catholic perspective, we really, really want to immunize the institution of marriage (which precedes the institution of the disciplinarian family) from homosexuality — in order to keep within marriage the important dimension of natural fertility (the fact that particular married, heterosexual couples are naturally sterile does not abolish the general point).

Again, sorry for the typos. I’ll have to sign off soon, since a bunch of horny, thirsty yet friendly barbarians are storming our place.

Re: Protevi banning me. It was in the context of a thread on guns. I was making the point that we should differentiate between the concepts of ‘mental illness’ (a psychiatric concept), ‘dangerous individual’ (a concepts of criminology) and the ‘insane individual’ of the judiciary. I was arguing for another concept, let’s call it the ‘Evil Cracker,’ — another concept which does not coincide with the dangerous individual, the mentally ill, nor the legally insane (although they could overlap, they don’t necessarily do so): this concept of the Evil Cracker would be a result of biopower in action by the Obama régime: aiming to separate the bible-clinging gun-owners from civil society. I was trying to think about it in the context of that proposition to mandate the finger-printing of every gun-owner, as some kind of biopolitical tatoo.

At one point, I gave the example of honour killing (among a few other examples of murders not related to islam) to demonstrate that we can have a murderous individual that can’t be reduced to mental illness or individual psychopathy/sociopathy.

Then the writer of the head-thread (Roberta something) replaced that part of my comment on honour killing with something like “we have no patience for quasi-racist B.S”, implying that I wrote something racist, which is a nasty accusation.

I replied that we should not conflate islam with a race.

They deleted my reply.

I replied this:

“I didn’t write anything remotely racist; I gave the example of ‘honour killing,’ and it has nothing to do with ‘race.’ Roberta either lied willfully ; or she grossly conflated two heterogeneous categories : religion and ‘race’. I’m actively against any form of racism ; it’s irrational and nefarious, as far as I’m concerned.
She also censored my original, analogous defense to her defamatory, vulgar & forked-tongue accusation.”

They deleted my reply and asked me not to post for 1 week.

I asked them to remove the nasty accusation of me being a racist if they don’t provide me the opportunity to defend myself.

Then I wrote something a few days later on another thread; not masking my identity; not changing my style; and Protevi banned me forever and ever, and ever, lol.

I asked him afterwards on Twitter if he’d know about an active right-wing blog with Deleuzians; he replied elegantly KMRIA.

I know DrDick. It’s a disgrace. The Church has been infiltrated by socialists and homosexual activists; it’s rotting from the inside, especially since Novus Ordo. Nonetheless, I shall never leave; it’s still the Bride of Christ.

When you find yourself writing these words, it is perhaps time to evaluate the many wrong paths you have taken in life. Or at least reflect upon how little you differ from the fanatics you condemn for worshipping a slightly different version of your imaginary sky wizard.

Then I wrote something a few days later on another thread; not masking my identity; not changing my style; and Protevi banned me forever and ever, and ever, lol.

What a lying sack of shit. You were banned for trying to evade the one-week cooling off period. But instead you changed names from the original “Kateshon” to “Paul Moran” and to “Tony Palacio” within the one week ban period, spewing vile homophobic trash. But your real banning offense is the intentional stupidity of confusing “quasi-racist” with “racist” and “homophobia” with only “being afraid.”

I do admit glee at erasing all your comments so that your work was wasted. I also liked replacing your last one with a pancake recipe. Loser. As for asking me to do your research for you? Find your own right-wing Deleuzean blog, FFS.

St. Catherine of Siena allegedly spoke directly with Our Lord, which is very, very, very rare. And not only did the Church declare her a saint, they took the extra step of ratifying the legitimacy of St. Catherine’s locutions from Our Lord by extraordinarily declaring her a Doctor of the Church. Here are the some of the words spoken by Jesus Christ Himself about pancakes; referring to sacred ministers, He says:

In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Make a well in the center and pour in the milk, egg and melted butter; mix until smooth.

Heat a lightly oiled griddle or frying pan over medium high heat. Pour or scoop the batter onto the griddle, using approximately 1/4 cup for each pancake. Brown on both sides and serve hot.

“reflect upon how little you differ from the fanatics you condemn for worshipping a slightly different version of your imaginary sky wizard.”

That’s a very wise and good advice. And I did, and I do.

From a conceptual perspective, the main difference is between two different kinds of violence. Have you read Walter Benjamin’s essay ‘On Violence’? If so, using his concepts, I’d say the difference between islam and Christianity is the same as between mythic violence (islam) and divine violence (Christianity).

Let’s take a very clear example, the use of the SWORD.

The warning Our Lord gave about the sword in the Garden of Gethsemane when the Jewish Guards came to arrest Him, after Peter attacked one of the guards with his sword was a warning, a prophecy about islam. Islam teaches that the way to convert people is to put a sword to their neck and give ‘em a choice: convert or die (cf. the “Sword of islam”). (Note that this is also how socialism operates: be re-educated or die.)

In addition to a prophecy about islam, Jesus is telling us that Christianity does not and will not convert with the sword. It converts only with charity, with love.

Jesus is also telling us that Christians do not and will not punish apostates with the sword. With the phrase “shall perish with the sword,” Jesus is saying that those who “take the sword” and try to convert people to, and hold people in, their evil systems by force, will in the end be killed WITH THE SWORD. The Army of Christ will be the one wielding the sword, according to Scriptures. It’s obviously a ratification of self-defense and just war.

That’s the main difference: the same as a threatening mythic violence and charitable, divine violence. Did I make it clear? Does it make sense?

What a lying sack of shit. You were banned for trying to evade the one-week cooling off period. But instead you changed names from the original “Kateshon” to “Paul Moran” and to “Tony Palacio” within the one week ban period, spewing vile homophobic trash.

You here? LOL.

I did not lie. I tried to logged in with my twitter account (@Kateshon) but was unable to; I tried with Katechon; it did not work; then instead I went for Paul Moran (standing for Moron); and you know that I did not change my writing style, which is quite recognizable, even to you. I really could not resist asking this woman why should the U.S.A. and Canada respect treaties made with the Native Americans when they, the Natives, had no concept whatsoever of individual rights and thus no respect for individual rights when they made those treaties? Then Paul Moron was banned.

On a subsequent thread (another day, on the subject of homosexuality) I (again) could not resist quoting St. Catherine of Sienna. I did not “[spew] vile homophobic trash,” I was quoting a saint patron of the Catholic Church !! — herself allegedly quoting the very word of Christ…

And my comment about conflating the Catholic criticism of homosexuality with an alleged phobia still stands; you claim to understand affects, yet, judged by the VOCABULARY you were using, you reduce criticism of homosexuality as a phobia, which is incredibly grotesque.

And yes, there was a conflation of islam with race, which is also far from astute.
Now stop accusing me of lying. Thanks.

When I say I was unable to login to comment via my Twitter account, I meant (as you probably know): I was not able to comment using my T-account. I was logged-in, but unable to comment.
Then I logged-off and commented as Katechon. It worked. As you know. The next time I tried, it did not work; the comments were not going through. They were not. Then I tried with another username, using Paul Moran instead of Katechon or @Kateshon, and it worked. So there you go, sir. Repeat your fecal forked-tongue mantra as long as you wish now, I won’t care.

‘Quasi’ also could mean ‘almost’. And as for me essentializing islam, well, this place ain’t the appropriate forum to discuss it. But I am not, I take the same phylogenealogical approach to islam as to other political institutions, using Foucault’s methodology.

The vocabulary one is using, especially if he calls himself a philosopher, does matter. You used the word ‘phobia,’ sir. Sorry.

Take care, and don’t eat too much of ‘em buttery pancakes. And yes, I’m sure she does love ‘em too. She is a very graceful lady, and I am sure she loves you too.

The Obama régime, if it tries to suspend permanently the effectivity of the 2nd A would act as a revolutionary force, usurping the Law of the Land.

Good Obama hasn’t shown any interest in doing this.

Believe me, I’d love to scrap the Second Amendment. It is antiquated relic. But if it happens (and it’s not happening, get you undies untwisted), it will be by act of the three fourths of the several States, as is our constitutional right.

Because you have a different opinion than you should here at LGM, there will be an attempt to shut you down. They will try to block your IP address and if you are successful in changing that (which is pretty easy), then they will try to block your MAC address. This, too is easy to change and there’s lots of software out there that will help you do that. And if all else fails, they will tag the name of your computer that you have in the hardware manager.

They are frustrated by those who don’t share the hive-mind. They cannot allow you to speak.

Isn’t it interesting how this Dagney person switches between the “aw shucks” writing style with no capitalization, frequent use of “aint” and “sir,” and the more academic tone with full capitalization and none of the “down home” tics? Hmmm . . . .

Debate over what? That your are a hateful bigot? That you have no idea what the fuck you are talking about? Nothing to debate there, as those are demonstrable facts. We just like calling fuckwits what they are.

Yes calling you a bunch of ignorant douchebags when you act like ignorant douchebags is exactly like repealing the First Amendnent, I’m a Canadian and even I understand your constitution better than you

The insertion of a penis into a vagina, which can lead to new life, is not equivalent to either the insertion of a penis into a mans colon or the insertion of electrical equipment or sex toys into one woman’s vagina by another.

Except that same sex sexuality has been reported for every animal species for which we have adequate data and is quite common among all primates. Indeed, all primates routinely engage in wide range of non-reproductive sex.

“it’s none of our business what two adults do in the bedroom, which I agree with”

“The insertion of a penis into a vagina, which can lead to new life, is not equivalent to either the insertion of a penis into a mans colon or the insertion of electrical equipment or sex toys into one woman’s vagina by another.”

Yep, I guess the only relationships that count are the ones that keep pumpin’ out the kids. My partner’s had a vasectomy, so I guess it’s the back of the bus for us.

What I don’t get is what is so special about having kids that it privileges some relationships over others? Some animals have recreational sex, like we do, and don’t seem too concerned about whether kids come out of it.

You cannot treat homosexual behavior the same as heterosexual behavior because, it is, in fact, not the same.

Really? A blow job by a man is fundamentally different than a blow job by a woman? And what about cunnilingus by a woman and a man? What if the man has long hair and uses a really, really good razor?

And what about anal? Is there really a difference if the bottom’s a man or a woman?

Let’s not even get into truly kinky stuff. I’m pretty sure you don’t want to go there.

When I see you guys spending millions to start a nation-wide movement to ban everything except the missionary position, maybe, just maybe (no guarantees here), I’ll stop openly mocking these “it’s just different” arguments. Until then, get outta here, you silly thing, you.

The bottom line is Leftists cannot accept that still, in the vast, vast majority of the world (an even vaster majority if you include all humans who ever lived) homosexuals have been a despised, tiny minority, and only in the last two decades, in a very small section of the world (western Europe, New England, and Canada) has this changed.

In Jakarta lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgendered, and transsexual are legally labeled as “cacat” or mentally handicapped and are therefore not protected under the law.[4] While Indonesia has allowed private and consensual sexual relations between persons of the same sex since 1993, it has a higher age of consent for same sex relations than for heterosexual relations (17 for heterosexuals and 18 for homosexual).[5]

So the comparison of homosexual relationships to interracial relationships fails on several levels–opposition to and prejudice against miscegenation is very much the rare exception in human history and not the rule. Nobody much cared about it until the 19th Century.

Dipshits like you use the word “natural” when you have no actual argument.

Shitting in a toilet is unnatural. Washing your hands with soap afterward is unnatural. Yet most people see these as *good* things. I wouldn’t be surprised if you do neither, but you’re also typing your ignorant nonsense on an unnatural computer, connected over the unnatural internet.

There are three of troll greatness; the ability to start shit, the ability to be entertaining, and the ability to go completely unrecognized. The best trolls would be those who nobody even thinks or considers for one second to be a troll. I don’t think, say, Brad Potts is a troll, but if he were he’d be an amazing one.

Rick was enormously entertaining and he was okay at starting it. That’s it.

[…] becoming one place to avoid (sorry Ralph)…if you are anything other than a wealthy white man: The Rich Male Whiteness, It Burns – Lawyers, Guns & Money : Lawyers, Guns & Money A bunch of conservative Texas groups are taking history departments at the University of Texas […]

I know I risk a lot of “hate” email by posting here, but as one of the writers of the NAS report, I would suggest that most of you have an inaccurate understanding of the study. First, the purpose of the study was to try to determine how two Texas universities were meeting a 1971 law requiring two courses in American History to graduate (By law, Texas History can be substituted for one of these courses). The overwhelming majority of institutions in Texas fulfill this legal requirement by a two-part survey course. We looked at University of Texas and TExas A&M since they were the flagships. The results from A&M and UT were actually quite different. First, UT had 35% of its courses as “special topics” rather than Survey or Texas History. A&M had only one special topic course and used Survey courses and TExas History to meet the legal requirement.
The NAS was critical of the use of Special Topic courses because they are focused on narrow topics. We were equally critical of the one special topic course in Military History at A&M as we were of those at UT which focused on Race and Gender Themes including several non-history department courses in American Studies.
We would expect that any survey course would have a signficant set of readings that focused on Race, Class or gender. Obviously, you cannot teach the pre-Civil War course without a full discussion of race, slavery, class, etc. We do not advocate a triumphalist interpretation of history. We want a U.S. history narrative that includes Warts & All. I say posted a lot of jokes and assumptions to the contrary, but yes–we want the total story, not just one side.
What we found missing, however, for the most part were intellectual history readings.
Many of those commenting seem to think we only classified a reading into one classification, such as Race or no other such as political or economic. This is actually not true, we did classify the overwhelming percent of reading assignment into more than one classification. For example, Abgail Adams writings are classified as both gender related and political.
Yet, notwithstanding this double and triple classification we found under represented, economic history, diplomatic history, intellectual history, religious history and yes, Military history.
We found that A&M was more comprehensive in its assignments in the survey courses than UT.
So what is the magic mix or formula–there obviously cannot be a exact number, but given the importance of social history topics involving particularly race, class or gender, I would think it would range between 33% and 40% assuming that there would be possible overlap among these. Yet, there still would some (probably the majority of) assignments which as simply outside the realm of social history that should be assigned and read in a survey course. For example, works by Bernard Bailyn, Pauline Maier or Gordon Wood would fall clearly into intellectual history and would add much to an undergraduate survey course. Yes, there is more to history than Social History, but yes Social History must be included.
Richard Fonte, NAS report writer